Overcome
by GayerThanOriginallyIntended
Summary: What do you say to the boy that made your life a living hell for six years when you catch him crying in the garden? She didn't know how to fix his problems anymore than she knew how to fix her own. All she knew was that if she stayed, everything would change.


AN: Ryan, I know you requested fights and mindless fluff but I think I have to deliver depth after all. I got a bit inspired while I was on Tumblr the other day.

To everyone else, enjoy my sadism. Or maybe it's masochism. Either way, this one hurts. But, ya know, read it anyway.  
-Jess

* * *

Hermione needed to leave—needed to be anywhere but there. The air was charged with a sort of electric sadness and everywhere she looked she was greeted with shaking shoulders and tear-stained faces.

Molly Weasley stood dry-eyed beside her slumbering son. Slumbering. Yes, he might have been sleeping on the cloud of too-white cushions and the over varnished wood with the Funeral Special arrangement of roses thrown right on top.

He would have hated it. Not the attention, of course—he would have _expected_ as much—but the crying; the utter clicheness of the whole scene. But more than that, he would have hated the look of complete emptiness on his twin brother's face.

She might not have been particularly close to Fred Weasley but she was smart enough to know that this was not the way to honor his memory. It was all wrong. Too sad to be associated with a man who never had been. So she snuck away. She slid through the wrought iron gates of the garden quickly and silently. As soon as the door clicked into place behind her, Hermione let out a sigh of relief. She stumbled into Mr. Weasley's favorite lawn chair, half-drunk from exhaustion and she saw it. Not an _it_, a _he_: an unmistakable mop of white blonde hair. Draco Malfoy.

Years at war had done a number on her nerves. In a second her wand was out and every muscle in her body was on high alert. She did not think about what was happening, but let her instincts guide her forward.

"Why are you here?" She spat, her wand shoved threateningly at his back.

But when he turned around she faltered. Her wand dropped a few inches and she took an involuntary step back. His cheeks were tinted with an angry pink flush. His eyes, normally cold and cruel, were bloodshot and gleaming with unshed tears. He hurriedly wiped away the evidence of any emotion from his cheeks but it was in vain. There was no wiping away the sadness in his eyes. And Hermione would never be able to unsee the tortured look on his face.

What do you say to the boy that made your life a living hell for six years when you catch him crying in the garden? She had just decided to leave and act as if none of it had ever happened when he spoke up.

"I just needed to…pay my respects," His voice was so broken all Hermione could do was nod and wonder what cruel higher power thought it would be a good idea to put her in this position, "I know that it ridiculous and that I was not invited, but I—I had to come."

Why was he telling her this? She didn't know the answer—and Hermione Granger _really _disliked not knowing the answer—and she didn't know how to make him stop. She didn't know if she should make him stop. So she kept nodding and he kept talking.

About Hogwarts—how he had always thought the twins' jokes were quite funny when they weren't directed at him. How he had actually like Fred because he was always so happy. He envied him, really. Then he was talking about Remus and Tonks and Dobby. Then Dumbledore. Then Snape. Then there was a long pause.

"It is my fault they are dead, isn't it?" He finally asked quietly.

She hesitated. Her wand had long since been retired to the inside pocket of her black dress robes and now her spare hand was reaching out, seemingly on its own accord. She wanted to wipe away the tears that had started rolling down his cheeks again in the last few seconds or so or hug him or something. Anything to make him sound…well, not like he did. She settled with setting her hand gently on his shoulder. If he had any objections, which she had been sure he would, he did not voice them.

"No, Draco, it is not your fault," His name sounded funny in her mouth. Had she ever spoken just his first name before? It was doubtful.

He shook his head, "It is. I could have…I should have stopped them. But I didn't because I am a coward."

She wanted to tell him that he was wrong—that he had never been a coward—but she would not lie to him. He _was_ a coward. Or, at least, he had been in the past. He was wrong about one thing, though.

"Of course you could not have stopped the,. You couldn't stop Voldemort. You couldn't, I couldn't, Albus Dumbledore couldn't, even Harry couldn't stop him on his own. This war, it was about more than you or me or Fred Weasley. It was about good and evil, right and wrong. It was about overcoming tyranny and prejudice and…" She had more to say, she just couldn't find the words, couldn't quite remember. Couldn't get past his tugging at her arm, gently but insistent. Then he was pulling at her sleeves. His thumb, calloused though she could not imagine why, ran over the scar on her forearm and she shivered.

_Mudblood_. How many times had she heard the same word come from his mouth, spat at her like a curse? But now his fingers skimmed it so gently she could barely feel them anymore. And he was silent for the first time since she had found him.

"And did you, Hermione? Did you overcome the prejudice?"

When she looked up he was too close. She could feel his warm breath on her neck. His eyes, a glacial white-blue, bore into hers and she could not look away. Her throat tightened and, though her mouth was open, no words were coming out. Instead she just nodded.

"Are you sure?" He whispered, his face inches from hers.

"You tell me."

Then he closed the gap and when their lips collided she had her answer.

* * *

Bam.


End file.
